


Paper Moon

by Butterfly



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-12
Updated: 2003-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:45:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way it once was. More or less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Moon

**Author's Note:**

> For [ascian3](http://ascian3.livejournal.com/) in the 'back in the day' challenge. Set roughly after _I Only Have Eyes For You_.

Sometimes, she liked having the gang around when she fought. Other nights, she was grateful that she'd gone out alone.

And this was definitely the second kind of night.

She ducked the vampire's fist and twisted around him, stake at ready, sighing when he dusted, too tired to quip anymore. Jokes were harder to find after ten or twelve vamps.

Especially when six of them had been sent by Angel - just for her. God, didn't he ever get tired of making new vampires? And didn't he ever run out of places for them to suck on?

Apparently not. These last ones had been stronger than normal, so he was giving the vamps a lot of blood when he was siring them.

Buffy leaned against a handy tombstone and rubbed her eyes, almost wishing that she had more crying left in her. It'd be nice to be able to cry again, instead of just feeling this emptiness. Angel was gone, never coming back, and she just wanted to make herself _believe_ that.

At least he couldn't get into the house anymore. The idea of him getting his hands on Mom or on Dawn was just… God, that was something she couldn't even stand to think about.

She had to kill him. Buffy touched her lips, remembering the way he'd kept kissing her, even after the spirits had left them. He'd kept kissing her. What did that mean? Was Angel still in there?

She couldn't even tell Willow about that. It was too… he'd killed Ms. Calendar. He'd hurt them all so much. Even thinking about impossibilities was a betrayal of everyone but…

For just a moment, she'd been kissing Angel. Her Angel, love and trust wrapped up in a black leather mystery that was never quite as mysterious as he thought it was.

Buffy sighed again then cocked her head, hearing something coming up the west path. She jogged east, pulling herself up into the tree near the Robertson's crypt. The path curved away from here, so she should be able to escape the senses of even vampires. And after the night she'd had, surprising the next demon would be a nice thing.

The sound came closer, clearer - someone was complaining really loudly, in an English accent. Which meant… Spike, she thought, a moment before his Day-Glo hair came into sight. And he was still in the wheelchair. Well, it was nice to know that she'd slowed him down that much. Would have been nicer if he'd just died, though.

And she _would_ have to deal with him someday. Maybe today, though the wheelchair thing was making it harder. He looked less stone-cold killer when he was trapped in that thing.

Her heartbeat stuttered when she saw Angel come around the corner. She relaxed in her perch - as long as she stayed still, Angel might not realize that she was here. He'd know that she had been here, but the dust would have told him that even if her scent hadn't. As long as she didn't draw attention to herself, he'd probably just keep arguing with Spike. Well, tolerating Spike's really loud voice, more than arguing with him.

And what was Spike pissed about? Could she use it? Spike was too far away for her to hear him clearly - which was good, because that meant that neither of them would pick up her heartbeat.

Part of her was trying to figure out if there was a way for her to take Angel out right now, while he was effectively alone, but the rest of her was captivated by him. It was horrible of her to even think, but she hadn't seen him since the kiss and her skin was almost shivering just from watching him move.

And no matter how many times she told herself it wasn't really Angel, her heart still jumped at the sight of him.

They'd finally moved close enough for some of Spike's words to reach her. They were arguing about Drusilla, Spike's psychic psycho chick. Well, Spike was arguing. Angel was just winning, from the looks of things.

 _Now_ would be a great time to kill Angel - he was distracted and he didn't have any minions around. And as a bonus, she'd be able to stake Spike, which would just be a lot of fun.

But she couldn't quite move. Her rational mind was making excuses - she'd have to make a new stake, break off a branch, and while she doing that, Angel could kill her, leaving the gang defenseless - but she knew that her brain had nothing to do with this decision.

He wasn't doing anything. And she knew that he'd done things, horrible things, and that he would go on to do even more awful things, but… right now, he was just walking.

Buffy blinked back tears. Great, this was a great time to regain the ability to cry.

They'd almost passed her position, still too far away for her to hear Angel's responses to Spike's loud whining. Angel smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching up, and Buffy licked her lips, remembering the way that mouth had felt on hers just a week ago. And he wasn't close enough for her to see the difference in his eyes. If she didn't look closely enough, it was near enough to Angel to pretend.

Buffy bit down on her lip - hard, but not hard enough to draw blood. She was distracting herself, not committing suicide.

Obviously, even letting herself look at Angel was a bad idea, so she forced herself to concentrate on Spike.

Seeing Spike still stuck in the wheelchair struck her as unnatural. Because really, even if his injuries had been that major, he should be healing more quickly than this. Unless he wasn't getting enough blood. Angel'd always healed faster if he'd had something to drink before patrol, not that he'd ever actually admitted that to her. And she could see this Angel as being petty enough to withhold blood, so maybe the Spike thing did make sense.

They were moving away from her now, going up the northeast path, still arguing. In a few minutes, it'd be safe for her to move, as long as she left in the opposite direction.

She stayed in the tree for over an hour, staring off toward the empty path, barely even blinking.

Finally, she heard a noise to the south - sounded just like the scream of some idiot wandering around at night who'd just run into a vampire - and she jumped out of the tree, landing smoothly on her feet.

She broke off a tree branch, twirled it to find the right grip, and ran towards the cries.

 _This_ she knew how to handle.

  
_the end_   



End file.
